Mont St. Francis a rare washed-rind goat cheese

Published 4:00 am, Sunday, June 12, 2011

Mont St. Francis cheese is richly aromatic, redolent of aged beef and barnyard.

Mont St. Francis cheese is richly aromatic, redolent of aged beef and barnyard.

Photo: Craig Lee, Special To The Chronicle

Mont St. Francis a rare washed-rind goat cheese

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Even Judy Schad, who makes the delicious Mont St. Francis at her Capriole dairy in Indiana, couldn't tell me why there are so few cheeses like it. Mont St. Francis is a washed-rind cheese made with goat's milk, and that category is exceedingly small.

I'm familiar with Clisson, a goat's milk cheese from France washed with brine and Sauternes; and with goat raclette, another French washed-rind wheel that local shops carry occasionally. I'm sure that a few novice American goat cheese producers are playing around with the format. But I can't, off the cuff, think of any other washed-rind goat cheeses with an established market presence.

Schad is no novice. She has been making cheese on her own goat farm since 1990 and making Mont St. Francis since 1994. She has altered the recipe throughout the years, switching to raw milk from pasteurized and reducing the cheese's size. Wheels of Mont St. Francis now weigh a little more than a pound, down from 2 or 3 pounds, a change that boosted the fragrant washed-rind character by raising the proportion of rind to paste.

The milk for Mont St. Francis is coagulated with animal rennet, cut into large curds and scooped into molds while the curds are still quite moist. After draining and brining, the 2-day-old cheeses are vacuum packed and sent to an aging room for three to five months. Then they're unsealed and bathed daily with brine for two to three weeks.

This salty bath encourages bacterial growth on the surface, producing the tacky caramel-colored rind responsible for the cheese's aromatic punch. Finally, the wheels are wrapped, boxed and given three to four weeks more aging before release.

Schad's methods are highly unusual. Washed-rind cheeses are typically washed in their youth, not after extended aging in a sealed bag. But the procedure, which Schad witnessed at a sheep dairy in England, allows her to use all the milk her goats produce in spring, when their output is most abundant. She can put the brakes on maturation and stagger her cheeses' release by vacuum sealing the young wheels. They continue to develop, but much more slowly.

I bought a quarter wheel of Mont St. Francis recently, enough to serve four with other selections on a cheese board. The thin, damp rind had the color of butterscotch candy, with a few splotches of white mold. Although it was richly aromatic, reminding me of aged beef and barnyard, it didn't have the dirty gym socks smell that some people object to in washed-rind cheese.

A few tiny eyes dotted the semisoft interior, a creamy paste complemented by the salty crunch of the rind. The flavor was intense and lingering but not as pungent as the aroma might suggest.

Schad recommends a good bourbon with Mont St. Francis - she likes a 20-year-old bottling called Pappy Van Winkle - but I'm not much of a spirits drinker. I tried it with both Napa Smith's Hop Ale and Lost Coast Brewery's malty Downtown Brown, and I enjoyed it with both beer styles.

Look for Mont St. Francis at Cheese Plus and Cowgirl Creamery in San Francisco, the Sacred Wheel in Oakland and Oxbow Cheese Merchant in Napa.

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